So, I heard Tom Davis was going to be on Face the Nation this morning and I freaked out. It's only a half-hour show and the other guest was Hastert-apologist Rep. LaHood. I thought maybe Davis would use the platform to call for Hastert to resign. I posted comments to the top post at Not Larry Sabato, a particularly active blog for a Sunday morning. My posts were off-topic, but what the hell. I also e-mailed James Walkinshaw, Hurst's campaign manager, who had kindly returned a message I sent the campaign's website recently urging them to stay on offense about Foleygate and Davis's cowardly silence. I didn't get reactions from either the other commenters at NLS or from Walkinshaw.
But it turned out that Bob Schieffer chose to host two Republican House Members who were disinclined to call for Hastert to step down. It was defense all the way, and Schieffer did a good job of exposing what a weak defense it was. LaHood rattled off other Members that Hastert was close to or appointed, DeLay (LaHood called him Hastert's "best friend"), Cunningham, and Ney, and said when their misdeeds were exposed Hastert demostrated strong leadership and told them they had to go. Schieffer said that Hastert put Cunningham and Ney there in the first place and pointed out the absurdity of ignoring any blame for that while wanting to take credit for dumping them when their continued tenure became untenable. Davis didn't do much better. He conceded that if the election were held today, Dems would retake the majority in the House. He said there are all these other issues (lowest unemployment in the world, record stock market, lower oil prices) that can't get oxygen because of Foleygate, but Davis so obviously omitted Iraq (only the number one real issue apart from Foleygate which is grabbing the headlines because it's new and the people love to talk about sex). Schieffer called Davis on ignoring Iraq. Davis looked very bad. It's a shame if Davis wins, because it'll only be because he has all the name recognition and all the money to run ads and voters in the 11th are too lazy, uneducated about the issues and Hurst, and complacent. If Davis wins, the 11th deserves what it gets. At best, it'll get two more years of lackluster representation by what I hope will be the ranking minority member of the House Gov't Reform Cmte. At worst, Davis will take the "mandate" and try to represent all of VA in the Senate.
